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social welfare

(Encyclopedia)social welfare or public charity, organized provision of educational, cultural, medical, and financial assistance to the needy. Modern social welfare measures may include any of the following: the car...

sexually transmitted disease

(Encyclopedia)sexually transmitted disease (STD) or venereal disease, term for infections acquired mainly through sexual contact. Five diseases were traditionally known as venereal diseases: gonorrhea, syphilis, an...

civil commitment

(Encyclopedia)civil commitment or involuntary commitment, process by which a court determines whether or not to order an individual to receive treatment or care or be confined. A person may be committed after a hea...

homelessness

(Encyclopedia)homelessness, the condition of not having a permanent place to live, widely perceived as a societal problem only beginning in the 1980s. Figures for the number of homeless people in the United States ...

Sato, Eisaku

(Encyclopedia)Sato, Eisaku āsäˈko͞o säˈtō [key], 1901–75, Japanese politician, prime minister (1964–72), brother of Nobusuke Kishi. After receiving a law degree from Tokyo Imperial Univ. (1924) he entere...

physician assistant

(Encyclopedia)physician assistant (PA), health-care professional who provides patient services ranging from taking medical histories and doing physical examinations to performing minor surgical procedures; often ca...

Texas Woman's University

(Encyclopedia)Texas Woman's University, main campus at Denton; state supported; primarily for women; est. 1901. It is the largest state-supported university for women in the country. There are schools of arts and s...

Kim, Jim Yong

(Encyclopedia)Kim, Jim Yong, 1959–, Korean-American physician, university administrator, and global health specialist, b. Seoul, grad. Brown (A.B., 1982), Harvard (M.D., 1991, Ph.D., 1993). He moved to Iowa with ...

drug resistance

(Encyclopedia)drug resistance, condition in which infecting bacteria can resist the destructive effects of drugs such as antibiotics and sulfa drugs. Drug resistance has become a serious public health problem, sinc...

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